Month: May 2010

How often have you heard the expression ‘it’s off the map’, or ‘I haven’t planned for this’, or ‘there is no routemap for what I am going through?’ The language of life often delineates where we go and what we are prepared to try. ‘That’s off limits’, or ‘don’t go there’ have far more impact and meaning than the words first suggest. We hear expressions like that virtually from the womb. In fact, it comes as a surprise that the first words we hear as infants aren’t ‘Welcome to the world, don’t walk on the grass!’

As children we will hear exhortations to ‘be careful’, to ‘watch where we’re going’ or ‘look out!’ – the culture of childhood is not to explore or to go to places that we are not supposed to. If anything, this culture of carefulness has become more pronounced in recent years. We sensibly, oh so sensibly channel our kids into the Scout or Guides and allow them to discover new things under very managed circumstances. Nothing wrong with that at all, but kids need to test themselves against bigger, stronger opposition than the local five badges on my sleeve brigade.

Most of us stay on the map for most of our lives. We explore the map, we go the very edge of the map in certain circumstances and occasionally we deliberately get ourselves lost, just to prove that we can survive in the wild. However, we are not in the wild, we are at the edge of a very civilised map. We clutch our compass and probably the phone number of our favoured local cab firm and we stride out with a slight sense of adventure.

When Christopher Columbus discovered America he did not set out with the objective of discovering a place called America. True, there was a sense of a brave new world existing out there somewhere, but not one that was already charted. A true explorer is not someone who re-discovers the known. To find yourself, you have to first lose your bearings.

In American law, discovery is the pre-trial phase in a lawsuit in which each party through the law of civil procedure can request documents and other evidence from other parties and can compel the production of evidence by using a subpoena or requests for production of documents and depositions. The important point here is that the lawyer does not know in advance what this request might turn up. If they did the request would be superfluous and the trial would probably not be necessary.

In the same way, if we know in advance what we are going to discover then actually we have already discovered it and the process of exploration is redundant. When people talk about career and planning their life, what they are attempting to do is read a map that they do not own yet. Let’s consider the word career for a second. A career cannot exist in advance. By definition, a career exists in retrospect. It is printed on a CV. It is difficult to plot or calculate in advance. However, careering about in your job or life in general may have the unexpected consequence of touching the edges of what is possible. You may discover areas of the future that you didn’t know existed.

Staying on the map means that you will not discover what lies off the map, the other side of the horizon, where the places are when you wander off the beaten track. Do you want to live on a beaten track? Do you want to live on the wall or off it?

You don’t have to subscribe to the National Geographic in order to explore. You don’t need to buy a tent and canoe down the Amazon. You don’t need to be Bear Grylls or Ray Mears. It’s a state of mind not a state of nation.

The first step of discovery is understanding that the door in front of you is locked on the inside, not the outside and that you hold the key. Step through it and breathe in the air. It looks unfamiliar but the sun is shining. Beyond the map, there is another map, undrawn.

As someone who didn’t speak until I was five years old and who has intermittently lost my voice at times of stress in my life, I am interested in matters of the voice.

What does your voice say about you? Can it reveal things without you knowing? Does it attract or repel independently of the rest of our bodies? Does it give away what we are really thinking without any cognizance from us?

I remember times when I have taken to the platform ready to deliver an inspiring speech, to rally the troops and persuade an audience of my fitness for a role and my voice has swung limply in the wind, cracked when it should have been solid, limped across the finishing line when it should have burst the tape.

The experts in body language will tell you that when your voice rises in pitch at the end of a sentence it means that you lack conviction in what you are saying. Controlling types are adept at making their voices close down like a mantrap at the end of a sentence in a tone that brooks no argument.

High, breathy tones denote turbo-charged emotional types who like facilitating the health and wellbeing of others, but do not inspire fear or respect.

The opening gambit in a sales call will either establish or destroy the same trust. A confident conversational tone will keep the listener on the end of the phone. A shouty sales pitch delivered in sheer desperation will inspire the ring tone. If the pitch of the voice that is speaking to you changes abruptly, there is fair chance that its owner is lying to you. Of course, it could mean that his underpants are too tight.

An extrovert is ‘outed’ by his or her voice which will be louder and more propulsive. An introvert will speak in a more muted and less speedy way – the voice will give away the fact that its owner is a highly analytical type unwilling to make quick decisions and deeply distrustful of fast, emotional decision-making. An enthusing style personality will find such people irritating in the extreme as they themselves speak quickly, animatedly and without a great deal of forethought. The analyzer will find such people frivolous and unworthy of trust.

At Powerchange we find that the most important element to establish in manipulating the behaviour of others is the establishment of rapport. The voice is a key instrument in this endeavour. If we hear a voice that sounds like our own then we automatically feel at home with it. Not only do we prefer the voice, but we also veer towards believing what that voice is saying.

Research has also discovered that people with attractive voices enjoy better sex lives from an earlier age – and with more partners. Those with attractive voices are also likely to have better bodies – broader shoulders and narrower hips in men. Its equivalent in women would be an hourglass figure, curves and attractive face. That is why we are so disoriented when we encounter rare cases of beautiful voices attached to visually unappealing owners. A phenomenon that is often associated with radio.

When I was eighteen and working in the City of London as a Lloyds Broker I consciously made the decision to alter my voice from a working class quack from the Thames Estuary to that of a sophisticated public school drawl. The former would have held my career back; the latter ensured acceptance from the privileged sons of the land who occupied the underwriting chairs in the Lloyds of London Chamber of the 1970s. I sometimes wonder where my original voice went. Do tapes exist anywhere of me speaking with my untrammeled Southend vowels and Essex glottal stops? My voice allowed me a career in radio later in life and has sometimes afforded me an authority I probably haven’t deserved. It has quelled schoolchildren in classrooms and chaired business meetings. It has commanded platforms and serenaded women, delivered bulletins and bolstered egos. But I sometimes wonder who is speaking.

The voice is an important instrument of persuasion, reason, argument, flattery, anger and sorrow. I usually think before I use it in case something unintended slips out like a piece of kiss me quick doggerel.

It’s good to have an attractive voice. But attractive voices are more likely to be unfaithful – or at least their owners are. This may be connected with the fact that people with nice voices are perceived as having a more desirable personality.

Having a voice that you are comfortable with and sounds relaxed and at ease when it makes an appearance is usually interpreted as meaning that you are a person of worth, secure in your body, confident and great company.

A useful rapport builder and a pleasant bridge. But I’m listening to the voice within.